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Clusters of cultivated soybean landraces from the North China Plain coordinate root morphology and rhizosheath carboxylates enhancing phosphorus acquisition

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Abstract

Background and aims

Plants have evolved an array of root traits associated with phosphorus (P) acquisition, including morphological and physiological traits. This study aimed to characterize the differences of various root traits in soybean (Glycine max) and explore their roles in P acquisition.

Methods

Root functional traits associated with P acquisition were characterized in 49 cultivated soybean landraces from the North China Plain grown in a glasshouse under low-P condition.

Results

We found a large variation in plant growth and all studied root traits. There was a significant correlation between total plant P content and root morphological traits in all 49 varieties. Hierarchical classification on principal components (HCPC) based on principal component analysis (PCA) indicated that soybean varieties could be grouped into three distinct clusters: total plant P content was positively correlated with some root morphological traits and seed P content in cluster 1 and showed positive correlations with root tissue density and rhizosheath carboxylates in cluster 2, while total P content showed no significant correlation with any root trait in cluster 3.

Conclusion

Root morphology and seed P content generally determined P acquisition of the present soybean varieties, but carboxylates also contributed to P uptake in some P-efficient varieties. We may be able to maximize soybean P acquisition via stacking root morphological and physiological traits, thus allowing plants to access different soil P pools.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (32072676, 32271610, 32102468), and the Australian Research Council (LP200100341). Wenli Ding was supported by the International Postdoctoral Exchange Fellowship Program (Talent-Introduction Program YJ20200203), which is co-funded by the Office of China Postdoc Council and China Agricultural University, and by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M700165). We thank Advanced Discipline Construction in Beijing (Agriculture Green Development) and Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (Plant-soil interactions innovative research platform 1031-00100701) to support this research. In addition, we thank Lijuan Qiu and Yongzhe Gu for providing soybean seeds as well as related information which was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Platform of National Crop Germplasm Resources of China (NICGR-2019-04), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs: Crop Germplasm Resources Protection Platform (2019NWB036-05). We thank Zhihui Wen for the internal review. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their highly valuable comments.

Funding

The study was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (32271610, 32072676, 32102468), International Postdoctoral Exchange Fellowship Program (Talent-Introduction Program YJ20200203), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M700165), the Australian Research Council (LP200100341), Advanced Discipline Construction in Beijing (Agriculture Green Development) and Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (Plant-soil interactions innovative research platform 1031–00100701).

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Author notes

  1. Wenli Ding and Wenfeng Jiao contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Nutrition, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, National Academy of Agriculture Green Development, Key Laboratory of Plant-Soil Interactions, Ministry of Education, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China

    Wenli Ding, Wenfeng Jiao, Wen-Feng Cong, Boyu Zheng & Hans Lambers

  2. School of Grassland Science, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Wenli Ding

  3. Kaifeng Development and Reform Commission, Henan, 475000, China

    Wenfeng Jiao

  4. The UWA Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley (Perth), WA, 6009, Australia

    Jiayin Pang, Boyu Zheng & Hans Lambers

  5. School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley (Perth), WA, 6009, Australia

    Jiayin Pang, Boyu Zheng & Hans Lambers

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  1. Wenli Ding
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  2. Wenfeng Jiao
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  4. Wen-Feng Cong
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Contributions

Wenfeng Jiao, Wen-Feng Cong, Jiayin Pang and Hans Lambers designed the study. Wenli Ding, Wenfeng Jiao and Boyu Zheng performed the experiment and collected the data. Wenli Ding analysed the data. Wenli Ding, Jiayin Pang, Wen-Feng Cong and Hans Lambers wrote this manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wen-Feng Cong.

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Ding, W., Jiao, W., Pang, J. et al. Clusters of cultivated soybean landraces from the North China Plain coordinate root morphology and rhizosheath carboxylates enhancing phosphorus acquisition. Plant Soil (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-024-06717-4

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